UNICEF: 'Yemen is a living hell for children'

A Yemeni child dies from preventable diseases every 10 minutes, the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) said on Sunday.

UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Geert Cappelaere, said: “We should not be surprised that today, in Yemen, a child dies every 10 minutes of easily preventable diseases.”

Some 30,000 children in Yemen die each year of malnutrition, he added.A living hell not for 50-60 per cent of children. It is a living hell for every single boy and girl in Yemen

“During any given year, 1.8 million children suffer from acute malnutrition and each day 400,000 from severe acute malnutrition, 40 per cent of whom live in Hudaydah and governorates where war rages,” Cappelaere said.

“In Yemen today, every ten minutes, a child is dying from diseases that can be easily prevented.”

“As an international community we have been shamefully slow to act to end the crisis in Yemen,” she said on Sunday. “We have watched the situation deteriorate to the point that Yemen is now on the brink of man-made famine and facing the worst cholera epidemic in the world in decades.”

Since March 2015, Yemen has been witnessing a violent war between government forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, backed by the Saudi-led Arab coalition, and Iran-backed Houthi militias.